


Dandelions

by amb-roses (overtture)



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Kayfabe Compliant, Letters, Missing Scene, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, Short & Sweet, Vignette, aka dean prioritizes roman over his own wellbeing, but not for long he's just reasonably wanting to strangle seth, mentions of vomiting in chap 3, more like, short & Bittersweet, slightly unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-10-17 19:43:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20626526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/amb-roses
Summary: Dear Seth,It's the end. Our parting of ways. Fittingly, I suppose I oughta hand these off to you at long last. Every unsent letter I kept around over the years, all addressed to you. You'll get a real kick of these, I hope. Keep you busy 'til we meet again.Yours, Always,Dean Ambrose, Jon Moxley





	1. daybreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day...
> 
> It's a big world out there, Seth. Bigger than you, bigger than me. We've seen so much, but there's still more left for us to experience. It's alright. 
> 
> One day...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh. baby fic time! don't got much to say other than, here's a little stress relief fic I've been working on, something smaller and less. deep. than other stuff! im thinking a little chapter a week maybe, instead of all chapters at once?

Dear Seth, 

Do you remember the first time I cried?

Do I have your attention now?

It was after our debut together as the Shield. Stupid looking turtlenecks and the new-pants feel. That was a long, long time ago. How time flies, huh? 

I remember making it to our hotel room and breaking into tears. And then you started crying, and then Roman couldn't help it, and then we were all laughing and crying in a run-down hotel room at hell o'clock in the morning.

We didn't even know each other that well. Wrestling has a way with the hearts of its wrestlers. We didn't know each other that well, but I could feel it. 

It wasn't the  _ real _ beginning, no, but the beginning of a new act in our little play together.

It was the first time I'd cried in a long, long time. Even now, I can remember the tired settling of the day in my bones. That was years ago, seems like it's been decades, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  Do you regret any of it? I want to say you do, particularly our first boy band break-up, but I know you, Seth Rollins. You don't have to feel guilty, I know how you think. That the betrayal was shitty, but we "got back together in the end, didn't we?" At the time, it made sense to you. The only option you could accept. 

These days... it's been a long road, Seth. They always say it's darkest before the dawn. I think I understand that, now, in a way I never have, cast in the lights of a pay-per-view arena. You know I'd do anything for you, you and little Ro, right? Even now, when all I dream of is the feeling of steel in my hands, all I think about now is your futures. You're both big boys, I know that, but-

Miles to go, little brother. Miles to go before I sleep. 

This was never the end. Of the Shield, maybe, but not the real end. Just the end of the first book. The chapter. Onwards and upwards, eyes up, little brother. Make sure to give Ro's chin a tap every once in a while for me, will you? You know him, he doesn't heed the warnings. He always looks down after someone says not to, gooses himself. He, you both, you're made for great things. So am I. Dean Ambrose lived his time, made use of it in the only way he knew how, and he's done all he can. Let him rest, alright? All I ask.

I regret a lot of things. I've lived a life, one full of shitty decisions and good ones, shit that's paid off and shit that's backfired. I've paved my road with them, my road to hell and back again.

The one thing I don't regret at the end of this is you.

Very truly yours,

Jon Moxley


	2. ████

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It hurts, Seth. It hurts so much. I don't know how to make it stop. Please make it stop. Seth— I don't know what to do. Roman is– I'm all alone now, little brother.

████,

███████,

Rollins,

███ █████ ███? ██, ██, █ ███ ██████████ ███ ████, █████? ███ ███ ████ ████ ██? ████ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██? ███ ███ ███ ███████? ███████? █████ ██ ██████ ███████ ████████— ███ █████ ███? █ ██████—

You ballsy motherfucker. You really had the gal, the nerve to bring a chair down on me, on our brother's back. You have no idea what you've just done. At least, that’s what I want to believe. That maybe there’s been a mistake somewhere. Maybe, you didn’t mean it. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

But I think, no, I know the truth. You put every ounce of power you could into those blows. You meant every inch of pain, every grain of salt into the wounds. █ ████ ███. I hate you. I hate you, you know that? I hate you so goddamn much. So fucking much. All I see when I close my eyes is the hate in yours. The vindicated, childish glee in the gleam. Do you hate me too, ██████ ███████? 

And maybe somewhere deep in that void in your chest, you regret it. Somewhere where you put all your doubts and fears, suppressed. I know you regret it, on some level. You have to. You can't fool me, Seth Rollins. I know you. You can lie to the Universe. You can lie to Triple H. You can lie to me, to Ro. You can even lie to yourself. 

But I know the truth, even if you yourself don't believe it, whatever you've told yourself to sleep at night. That you had to, you're not a bad person, it was necessary. And maybe it was necessary, prophet. You were always a step ahead of us. But it didn't have to happen now. Not like this, you sick bastard.

I think, if I really squint, I can see your reasoning, and it hurts in a way I almost can't identify. That you know it’s wrong, and some part of you wanted there to be a better way, a different way. That you never wanted to do it. Not like this. And I can hear your nasal tone even now, its in every nightmare and every sweet dream. _Then why do you hate me?_ You ask. _If you understand? If you see why I had to do it? _

But that’s why it hurts so much, Seth. Because you did it anyway.

This isn't over. 

See you soon, 

Dean Ambrose


	3. desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sorry thing is– we still love you. Somewhere in the charred remains of our chests, we love you. We love you so much, Seth. I don't pretend to know, but did you remember? Or maybe– did you think we'd hate you? I think some part of me does, but Roman is still—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to pain :') can you tell i had. feelings with this one. roman's all sharp looks and strength, but he's also the guy that doesn't cheat to get ahead, even when the only way forward is the most treacherous and painful one. i don't think he can truly hate, not the way others do, & i tried to express that concept here !

Rollins,

He won’t stop crying. I don’t know how to help, and it hurts. It’s Roman, little brother. 

You hurt him real bad and he was too injured to really feel it at the arena, but now the painkillers kicked in and all he can feel is everything he couldn’t in-ring. I don’t think he meant to, but he started snifflin’. Quiet little things in the shower, and once we were both cleaned up and he’d gotten through the worst of the puking and got all the shock out of his system, everything you did seemed to hit him.

He was trying to be strong for me. I think he half expected you to walk back into the room and explain what an amazing job we did in your newest scheme, the one you forgot to mention, you know?

I can’t even find it in me to be angry at you, not right now. I can be hellbent-furious later, when he's okay and can sit up on his own. But right now he’s Roman Reigns, and you ripped his fuckin’ heart out and beat it to a bloody pulp in front of hundreds, thousands, millions, on live television. You took our history and spat it at your feet. Every single second, you threw back in our face. All this? This is an irreversible smear across our pasts and futures. You finally achieved that landmark, history making moment you always wanted.

And Roman, our sweet, stupid baby brother, tried to be strong for me. He can barely find it within himself to distrust me in the way he is now. I know for a fact the first thing I thought when I brought him back to the hotel was something along the lines of him backstabbing me too.  I guess that makes me the shitty brother, huh? 

If I was who I used to be, I'd feel pity. Mercy, maybe. Roman is the kind of backyard, side-of-the-road animal you put out of it's misery. Now I hurt just as much and I just want to keep him safe. He's a big boy, a fully realized adult despite all the _baby _I throw around. He isn't naive or innocent. More than many, yeah, but he isn't glass. He wasn't made fragile, but right now? He's a broken kid. I'll live too, one day. I'll stand up straight and look you in the eye, having come to terms and moved on. One day. But looking at Roman now, I'm not so sure about him.

He’s always been the one with stiff morals, too soft and golden for his own good under all the steel. I always said it’d get him, but I didn’t think it’d be like this. I don't know how to fix it, because I know beating you into a bloody mess like you did to us won't make the ache go away. It'll numb it, make it fade out, but it won't last for long. I don't know if he realizes that yet, but I guess I have the sort of fucked up life experience for this sort of thing.

It wouldn’t have been like this a few years ago, but now? I want to skin you for him first, and myself after. Me and him can’t be the Shield no more, the Shield is dead and gone, you buried it yourself, but… would you look at that? My schedule is suddenly clear. And so is his, even if I look at him and still see how much he loves you. For him, I’d kill a man, even if he'd hesitate with his teeth at your neck, no matter how much he barks. 

He's———— crying again. Our boy is crying, Seth. For just a moment, a second is all I'll allow myself, for just a moment— I wish you were here. You would know what to say, how to help. I miss you and your way of always saying the right thing, and– I wish– I don't know how to be strong for him like he's trying to be for me. I don't know how to help him without falling apart. He's crying, not even the great heaving things earlier, just quiet, broken keening and shaking gasps, grief and _loss _and everything I can barely handle myself right now. I'm just a deep breath away from fucking shattering, and I don't know. I don't know what to do. 

I don't know how to not self-combust. I've never needed to watch out for myself on this level before, intuition and instinct does that shit for me, but Ro cares, he cares so much. And I need to keep myself together for him. I can't fall apart and leave him alone. He cares so much it's hurting him and I don't know what to do. I don't know. I don't know. All I do know is that you did this. Actions have consequences, Seth Rollins, and if there's anything Dean Ambrose is, it's selfish.

This doesn't change anything, Rollins. For him, for myself but always for him, you're a dead man walking. First available opportunity, I'm going to make you pay.

Fuck you,

Dean Ambrose


End file.
